ART was hanging around out in my feed but mercifully hadn’t tried to talk to me yet. At 75 percent capacity, I tried to sit up.
MedSystem started to throw warnings and ART said, There is no reason to move now. During the process I ran a search of my onboard public information newsfeed bases during the time period in question, regarding unusual fatalities relating to mining. Do you want my conclusions based on the results?
I eased back down, feeling my organic parts cling to the warm metal of the platform. I was now leaking from a different spot. I told ART I knew how to fucking read search results.
I would defer to your expertise in shooting and killing things. You should defer to mine in data analysis.
I told it fine, whatever. I didn’t think there would be anything useful.
It sent its conclusions into the feed. Admittedly, it made sense that a large number of deaths under unusual circumstances would end up in some sort of public record available to multiple newsfeeds, the way the DeltFall incident had. The RaviHyral incident might have been classed as an accident, but a company bond was involved so there would have been a legal battle. Though if the data said it was a rogue SecUnit who had killed everyone, that didn’t give me any more information than I already had.
Records across several archived newsfeeds indicate the site of the incident was likely a small installation called Ganaka Pit. The information originates in a source from Kalidon, a political entity on the Corporation Rim, where the company funding Ganaka Pit was based. There were fifty-seven fatalities. The cause is listed as “equipment failure.”
SecUnits were categorized on inventory as equipment.
ART waited, and when I didn’t say anything, added, So your initial assumption was correct, the incident did occur. Investigation can now proceed.
I wanted to shut down, but it would interfere with the healing process.
ART asked, Do you wish to watch media?
I didn’t respond, but it started an episode of Sanctuary Moon anyway.
When I was finally able to climb off the platform, I fell on the deck, but by the end of that cycle I was almost back to normal. The first thing I did was wash off all the blood and other assorted fluids in the bathing facility attached to the MedSystem bay. Security ready rooms had facilities where I could clean off the blood and fluids after a fight or a repair, but I had never used a facility meant for humans. ART had good ones, with the recycled cleaning fluid that was so much like water it was hard to tell the difference without a chemical analysis. You could adjust the temperature to make it warmer, and it smelled good. I smelled like a clean human afterward, and that was just odd.
The fine hair that was coming up in patches in various places was strange but not as annoying as I had anticipated. It might be inconvenient the next time I had to put on a suit skin, but the humans with hair seemed to manage with a minimum of complaint, so I figured I would, too. The change in code had also made my eyebrows thicker and the hair on my head a few centimeters longer. I could feel it, and it was weird.
I went to ART’s rec space and used the treadmill and the other machines to test myself, making sure my weapons were still functioning correctly and my aim wasn’t off. (I didn’t test fire them, as ART let me know that it would set off the fire protection system if I did.)
I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time.
I told myself I still looked like a SecUnit without armor, hopelessly exposed, but the truth was I did look more human. And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this.
It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.
We exited the wormhole on schedule. As soon as we were in range of the transit ring, ART stretched its reception and picked up the destination info packet for me, which included a more detailed map of RaviHyral. Rotating the map to look at it from every angle didn’t jog anything in the fragments of memory I had of that time. But it was interesting that Ganaka Pit wasn’t marked anywhere.
I could feel ART in my feed, looking over my figurative shoulder again. I checked the timestamp, and saw the map had been updated multiple times since the time period of my incident. “They took it off the map.”
Is this usual? ART asked. It dealt only with star maps, and removing something from one of those was kind of a big deal.
“I don’t know if it’s usual or not, but it makes sense, if the company or the clients wanted to conceal what happened.” If the company wanted to continue to sell contracts for SecUnits to other mining installations, concealing the fact, or at least obscuring the fact, that fatalities had occurred was important. Maybe instead of a legal battle, the company had paid out on the bonds quickly under the condition that the client minimize details about the incident in the public record. This hadn’t been a situation like GrayCris and DeltFall, where there were multiple parties involved and the company was all over the newsfeeds, trying to generate sympathy for itself.
ART pulled more historical info, searching the pit and service installation names that were listed. RaviHyral had originally been held by a number of companies with mining rights to different areas of the moon’s interior. But over the past two system-years, a company called Umro had bought out some of the claims, though many of the original companies were still operating as contractors. None of the names sounded familiar.
I’d have to figure out where Ganaka Pit had been before I could go there. I would have been transported there as freight and there weren’t any memories of the trip, partially erased or not.
I started to search through the rest of the info packet, looking for schedules. I would have to get a shuttle from the transit ring to the RaviHyral port. That would be tricky. Well, the whole thing would be tricky. From the information on the shipping schedule, only people with employment vouchers or passes from one of the mining installations or support services were allowed to board the shuttles. There was no tourism, nobody coming and going without official authorization from one of the companies or contractors on the moon. Since I wasn’t a person and I didn’t have an employment voucher, I would have to hack my way into one of the supply shuttles …
ART was still pulling data from the station feed. I have a suggestion, it told me, and displayed a set of personal advertisements. I had seen these in the feeds at Port FreeCommerce and the last transit ring, but hadn’t paid attention. ART highlighted one that was a job listing for a temporary position as security for a technologist group on limited contract.
“What?” I asked ART. I didn’t understand why it was showing me this.
If this group hired you, you would have an employment voucher for travel to the installation.
“Hire me.” I’ve had more contracts than I can remember (I mean that literally. A lot of them were before the memory purge) but none of them were voluntary. The company pulled me out of storage, showed me to the client, then packed me into the cargo hold. “Have you lost your mind?”
My crew hires consultants for every voyage. ART was impatient that I wasn’t complimenting it yet on its great idea. The procedure is simple.
“For humans and augmented humans, yes.” I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. I know that’s what altering my configuration was supposed to be for, but I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.